Help me out here guys!

[Erlend_G]

Well, i have posted this earlier, but im in desperate need of a new nut for my peavey raptor guitar!

I guess you guys would have brougth the axe to a luthier or make your own nut, but first of all, im a dumb 15yo, and theres no techs\luthiers around :yell:

Do anyone have a solution for my problems? please?

Thanks,
-Erlend

 

[Pepi]

Re: Help me out here guys!

Well, i have posted this earlier, but im in desperate need of a new nut for my peavey raptor guitar!

I guess you guys would have brougth the axe to a luthier or make your own nut, but first of all, im a dumb 15yo, and theres no techs\luthiers around :yell:

Do anyone have a solution for my problems? please?

Thanks,
-Erlend

Order a Earvana nut. They are very easy to install and they help out a lot with the intonation.

 

[Erlend_G]

Re: Help me out here guys!

Yeah, thanks man, but those earvanas seems very difficoult to install from looking at the instructions at the website?

 

[bert123]

Re: Help me out here guys!

Dan Erlewine has a whole chapter in his latest book on guitar repair devoted to replacing the nut. My be the reason for so few responses. He has several paragraphs on how to remove the old nut.

I got one of the graphite nuts from Stew-Mac for my project strat to replace the cheap plastic one on the Mighty-Mite neck I used. Since the Raptor is a strat like guitar. See if some of the strat preslotted nuts at Stew-Mac, WD, AllParts will work. For your first nut job this would give you less to learn. What you need to know to get the correct nut:
1 the width of neck at the nut
2 thickness of the nut

To remove my old nut I used a thin Exacto hobby saw to slice it down the middle. First use a exacto knife or safety razor to cut along both sides of the nut to break any glue bond between the nut and the fingerboard. I then used some pliers to crush the nut and lift it out.

After the nut is out you need to clean the nut slot. Reove the old glue etc. Stew Mac sells a file fot this that only has teeth along the bottom so you don't make the nut slot wider while cleaning the bottom.

If you bought a precut nut now you just make sure it fits snugly in the slot.

For the next step you need nut slotting files (or equivalent), and feeler gauges. Determine the fret height (mine was .047 inches) and add say .020 inches to it for a starting height for your high E string, you'll make the strings higher as they get thicker. Stack your feeler gauges to .067 inches. File the slot with the file angled down towards the headstock and the feeler guages against the nut. Stop when you hit the feeler gauge stack. Add say .002 inches for each string. As you deepen the slots you'll need to file/sand the top of the nut down so that only half the string is in the slot. When your done you can use some wet sand paper to remove scratches and polish the top of the nut. I did this with the strings on using them to hold the nut in place. I then tuned to pitch and made intonation and string height adjustments. Then played the guitar like this for a couple of days and made slight string slot depth adjustments. When I was happy I then removed the nut carefully and used a few drops of wood glue in the nut slot to glue the nut in place, using the guitar strings as clamps.

I'm sure I left out some key warning someplace but those are the basic steps.

Now a set of nut files or just the 3 sizes Erlewine recommends costs $50 to $90. Since I had a preslotted nut, I used a set of round files you can get to clean acetylene torch tips. There is a guy selling them on EBay as guitar slotting files.

I would really recommend Erlewine's book. Maybe you can convince your town/school librarian to order one.